Sawt al Niswa | صوت النسوة - palestinian refugees in Lebanon

اللاجئات الفلسطينيات و مقاومة الفصائل

Stega — Tue, 12 Jul 2016 08:55:59 +0000

مخيم مار الياس - إسلام الخطيب

إسلام الخطيب

المرأة الفلسطينية التي تحتفل بها القوى والمنظمات الفلسطينية سنوياً وتعتبرها "نموذجاً يحتذى به" تقتل على يد زوجها\ابنها\وابيها يومياً في مخيمات الشتات...وتلك المنظمات التي تجيد إستخدام اللغة الذكورية المغلفة بالمجازات والاستعارات تحمي القتلة. وهناء يعقوب خير دليل على خيانة وتهميش بعض الفصائل للمرأة الفلسطينية.

قبل يوم المرأة العالمي بأسبوع، أقدم سالم عوض على قتل زوجته هناء يعقوب في "حي طيطبا"- مخيم عين الحلوة و "إختفى". كثرت الشائعات حول إختفائه ليؤكد أحد سكان المخيم أن سالم عوض إختبأ في مكتب تابع لإحدى الفصائل الفلسطينية "العريقة" و وفقا لما أكده سكان المخيم هو "مكتب العرموشي". المستغرب هنا ليس إحتضان القاتل من قبل فصيل ما، المستغرب هو أن الرجل (م. ن) الذي أمن له تلك الحماية قد أقدم على قتل أمه في العام السابق! وبعد الإتصال بالمشرفين على هذا المكتب ومسؤولين في اللجنة الأمنية أكد جميعهم على أن هذا الخبر هو ليس إلا "شائعة مغرضة تهدف إلى زعزعة أمن المخيم" وكأن خبر قتل رجل لزوجته واختفائه هو أمر عادي ولا يجوز إستغرابه.

بعد مرور عدة أيام على إختباء القاتل، تم تسليمه للقوة الأمنية الفلسطينية المشتركة ولم تتدخل الدولة اللبنانية حتى هذه اللحظة.

والجدير بالذكر هو أن هناء يعقوب لم تتحول إلى خبر تتداوله وسائل الاعلام لدقائق، ولم يضاف إسمها الى لائحة ضحايا العنف الاسري التي نجيد تناسيها. وكأن جنسية هناء جردتها من ذلك، وجنسها جرمها من حقها بالحياة.

منذ سنة قتل رجلٌ أمه في عين الحلوة، من أسابيع قتل رجل زوجته في عين الحلوة، وكل يوم تتعرض إمرأة للضرب والتحرش اللفظي والمعنوي والاغتصاب في مخيمات الشتات. هذه جملة لا تستطيع اللغة تلطيفها. إنه الواقع المر، البشع بكل عجز اللغة عن تلطيفه أو حتى وصفه. ويبقى السؤال، لمن تلجأ المرأة الفلسطينية في لبنان؟
المراة الفلسطينية تقمع من قبل الفصائل الفلسطينية والدولة في آن معا. الفصائل الفلسطينية لا ترى فيها الا تحفة فنية يتباهون بها في خطاباتهم ولا تُمثل في القيادات ولا تشارك في القرارت السياسية وتعتبرها سلعة لهم حق المتاجرة بها كما يتاجرون بخطاباتهم عن النضال والمقاومة، هذه الفصائل تغلق ابوابها في وجه المرأة الفلسطينية وتفتحه للمجموعات الاسلامية المتطرفة ولبيوت الدعارة التي "توظف" القاصرات وتدعي انها تهتم لـ "حقوق المرأة". والدولة التي تستغل وضع اللاجئة كإمرأة اولا وكلاجئة ثانيا.

لا يمكن كلاجئات فلسطينيات ان نثق بالفصائل، كلها دون أي استثناء، بعد كل هذه الانتهاكات الموثقة. ولا يمكن غض البصر عن اي فصيل باعتبار انه تاريخ "مقاوم". المقاومة لا تكون على حساب انتهاك اجسادنا وحقوقنا. وهذه الحالة ليست حصراً على اللاجئات، بل ايضا على نساء الداخل اللواتي يقاومن ذكورية الفصائل والاحتلال سويا

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Intersectionality of Trauma in Lebanon

deema kaedbey — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 21:00:00 +0000

By Mozzoom, Naher Al Bared Demonstration, 2010

Farah Salka

Walid Taha was a Palestinian father of five. He used to live in Aramoun. A month ago, a fire erupted and burnt down the house while he was sleeping inside. He somehow made it out alive, with burns over 70% of his body. Imagine what that means.

This left a whole family destitute, with no house to live in, no more support from the father’s income, and no means of paying for the father’s medical care. After all, Walid Taha was Palestinian. His only means of getting “medical care” is from UNRWA. His daughter did visit UNRWA, and was shut up by a check of a $4,000. Exactly what could that do for someone who is 70% burnt and who needs a minimum of $50,000 to be cured? She was later on thrown out of UNRWA for insisting – righteously – on full support for his operation. The family received similar treatment from the Palestinian embassy.

Walid’s daughters and sons did not leave a group or an organization or a person they know unapproached, and they plead for support and for their basic inherent rights as Palestinians – nothing more. But who would listen? UNRWA and the Palestinian Embassy in Lebanon have yet again proved what they stand for. The Lebanese government and those two entities are, at the end of the day, just about the same monster, with different labels.

There is only one hospital in Lebanon that treats burns of such degree – the Jeitawi Hospital. But Walid Taha could not be admitted there because they asked for a $20,000 down payment (as if you are buying a car) before his entry. Obviously, the family couldn’t afford that.

Out of all the hospitals, the only one that admitted Walid Taha was AUH, with a $3,500 deposit, which the family paid from the money that was supposed to go to the university fees of one of the children. In AUH, Taha was not treated for his burns. He was just on pain killers, delaying his collapse, because after all, AUH does not have a specific section for burns. His organs withered away, one after the other, because of the severity of his burns.

Barely any media or any sort of entity talked about Walid Taha. Similar cases happen almost on a daily basis in this country ever since the Palestinians were moved here. There is nothing new about that. (This is the first piece written on his case in Al-Akhbar http://www.al-akhbar.com/node/6130.)

Walid Taha passed away the same night we went to visit his family in AUH. Last we heard, they were not letting the family take the body from the hospital before they paid the bill, which was too many 0’s for me to recall. We did not dare call again to see what happened afterwards. At least I was too ashamed, as a Lebanese, to pick the phone up and call. I wish I could throw my nationality away and get this over and done with. It puts so much weight on me every dawn of every day.

We then heard that one of his sons had to sign that he will pay $20,000 in a month max in order for AUH to accept that they take the body out and bury Walid. Who is going to protest putting this son in prison and ending his life just because he wants to let his father’s soul and body rest in peace after years’ of humiliation on Lebanese soil? Apparently, not only are Palestinians not allowed to live respectfully and in peace in this country. They also have to pay a very expensive fee if they plan to die in peace.

Walid’s wife was a Lebanese citizen, or so they say. She couldn’t pass on her nationality to any of her five children, nor to her husband. Were that possible, probably, Walid would have had much better chances of finding a place in that Jeitawi hospital, which had repeatedly insisted that there were no empty beds in the final two weeks before Walid’s passing away.

Palestinians’ rights in Lebanon. Women’s rights in Lebanon. Human rights in Lebanon. Medical care in Lebanon. Anything, as a matter of fact, in this Lebanon, leads to the inevitable intertwined question: Where are we going with all this?

RIP Walid Taha

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Brainstorming Nakba

deema kaedbey — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 21:00:00 +0000

Jehan Bseiso

At curious four I asked my mother why Superman did not speak the same language I did

She told me that

Our cartoon hero is a little boy forever ten

His hands clasped behind his back, invisible handcuffs

She told me I had to learn another alphabet, another geography,

In the Big Yellow Atlas, for kids, full of pictures

We stenciled in your awkward shape into maps that didn’t even want you

We had to learn your name in their language
They told me I spoke funny.

So I rinsed my accent at school; madraseh instead of madrasa

I read about diaspora and exile and power structures

Without knowing what they meant

So you’re American? On paper

And Jordan? Is what I know

And Gaza? An old wives tale

We are bastard children of hyphens and supplements and sentences that start with

Originally I’m from…

At home,
Baba counted in dead bodies, in ratios, and for breakfast we had

Nostalgia and symbols

We read Kanafani, Darwiche and Said

When we found tongues

We learned to speak from the margins of pages,

From the periphery

Maybe this is Freud’s “oceanic feeling”.

A veritable storehouse in the unconscious

To be from a place and not know the place

There are simpler ways of being in the world, I’m told.

Still I choose Za3tar and Shatta and this awkward Fat7a.

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Uncivil Rights for Palestinians: Women's Voices

deema kaedbey — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 21:00:00 +0000

Sonya Knox

On August 17, 2010 the Lebanese Parliament passed the latest version of a “civil rights” bill for Palestinian refugees. Rather uncivil than civil, the bill maintains the official, state-sanctified racism against Palestinian refugees. While it is no longer illegal for Palestinians to work in menial jobs, the new law continues to ban Palestinian refugees from syndicated white collar professions (like doctor, lawyer, engineer, dentist), and continues to ban them from owning property (a right which was taken away from them in 2001) and from inheriting any property bought before 2001.

This was not the version of the bill that should have passed. Earlier bills, proposed this June, would have granted Palestinian refugees in Lebanon – foreign residents for over 60 years – the right to work in any profession, to own and inherit land, and to access the National Social Security Fund. The version that passed was not the bill advocated for by the Campaign for Civil Rights for Palestinians, by the Right to Work Campaign and the Campaign for Employability of Palestinians. It certainly is not what concerned activists and NGOs have been fighting for since the end of the Lebanese Civil War. In fact, it’s not even similar to the bills that were originally proposed to Parliament.

It is hardly surprising that Lebanese politicians have yet again chosen to reinforce the most racist, discriminatory and basest sentiments in society – fear-mongering and protectionism are invariably more popular than progressive social development theory or basic human rights. What was surprising was that, for a brief moment, Lebanon could have started on the path to becoming a different place: a country where skills and not wasta is rewarded, a society where institutionalized racism is no longer defended, a place people want to stay in, invest in, rather than flee.

Over the past few days I’ve talked with friends and colleagues who live in the camps, second and third generation Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon, and asked them what they thought of the latest “civil rights” bill and how their lives might have changed had they really been granted civil rights. These are their words.

Rasha, 17, Bourj al Shemali^¹

I never get it, right, I never get why the Lebanese think I would want to stay here. Look, it’s not like I have a choice. Do you really think that 60 years ago my grandparents were like, “Oh, we’re bored of Nablus, what we want to do is leave behind all our money and the house and the family business and go live in this dirty, crowded camp where we can’t work”?!

Look, if I could go someplace else, I would. But I can’t. They don’t give visas to 17 year-old refugee girls. And they don’t let us do anything here. My brother has been trying to find work for like years, he has a computer degree from the university here, and when he applies, they tell him, “We don’t hire Palestinians.”

But I don’t understand why the Lebanese punish us. I mean, ok, the civil war – and I know what happened, I watched all of 7arb Lubnan – but that wasn’t me. I wasn’t even born yet. I’ve done nothing wrong.

But, yeah, when they were like the government is going to let us work like everyone else, I had this idea. See, I’m studying accounting now. It’s fine, but I don’t really like it. What I want to study is Arabic literature, the old classics and poetry. There’s no way that’s going to happen, because I don’t even have the baccalaureate, and then how would I get the money to study? How would I convince my family to pay so I can study something like that? But then, like, if we had the right to work, then I could become an Arabic teacher – not in UNRWA – but at a university. And then I could work, too, and help out. But we don’t have the right to work. So nevermind.

Layla, 38, Bourj al Barajneh

I never believed it would happen. I’ve lived here my whole life, I know how the Lebanese think, and I never believed they would give us rights. They’re scared, it’s a society of fear. They’re scared of each other, so they blame us, they punish us and put the army around the camps and make sure we can’t work decent jobs. And if, somehow, we actually manage to make some money, we can’t invest it back into Lebanon, because we can’t buy property.

So of course I knew the bill wouldn’t pass. Because being Lebanese means being racist, and they’re not ready to change. Look, we all know that it makes more sense to have Palestinians working here than all the other foreign workers. Because we live here, so whatever money we earn, we spend here. The money stays in Lebanon. We already pay the VAT and it’s not like we get any Lebanese health or education services. So this bill, it’s not a logical response, it’s just racist.

But what, what if all that was dropped? What if we could work anywhere, build anywhere, not be presumed guilty and have to worry every time we see the Army? Then I wouldn’t see everything always closed-off. I wouldn’t feel so choked. I would say, “Ok, good, now we can get to work and make something of ourselves here and work hard, so that we’ll be strong when we go back to Palestine.”

Dania, 24, Beddawi

I broke off my engagement last month. I don’t know why, something happened to me and I can’t be happy with him. So it’s bad, it’s really bad right now because it was kitbil kitab and now we have to pay his family a lot of money. My parents tell me it’s ok, that they don’t want me to be this upset, that they support me. But I’m scared and I’m upset and I want to get a job. I don’t want my parents paying the money of the divorce, I want to pay it off.

So, yes, I want a job. I have a civil engineering degree. I have a degree from the Lebanese University in English literature. And I speak English well. Do you think I’m going to find any work? There isn’t anything in the camp that pays well – even the international NGOs are stopping their work here. And Tripoli? Do you really think anyone would hire a Palestinian in Tripoli?

When they said that they were going to change the laws, you know, to give us rights, I thought that maybe things would get better. I know it would take time, but that yes, there would be opportunities. My father could open a store, I could work in an engineering firm, things would be better. But nothing’s changed, and I still need a job.

1 Names and places are all changed

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